Grout is generally a mixture of water, cement, sand and fine gravel, and is distinguishable from concrete or mortar by its plasticity and fluidity. Grouting is a procedure by which grout is injected into voids, fissures or cavities in soil and rock formations to improve their physical properties, and in particular, to seal fractures, reduce permeability and increase strength of the formations. Grouting can also be used when installing ground anchors and rock bolts in soil and rock to provide structural support.
Most grouting operations require drilling a hole in soil and rock and injecting grout into the hole. The quality of a grouting operation often depends on exercising proper control over levels of grouting volume discharged, grout hole pressure and duration of grouting, with due consideration for time and cost of the operation. Industry practice for quality assessment in grouting operations have focused on a narrow range of tests and traditional methods of data measurement and collection, leaving more to be desired for effective and accurate grouting data collection for analysis.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide for improved methods and systems for performing grouting operations.
Like reference numerals are used in the drawings to denote like elements and features.